Foodie in The Gambia

I truly believe that one of the most meaningful ways to explore a culture is through its culinary.

In this, our trip to The Gambia promised to be one of discovery!

Going in I must admit I had certain preconceptions due to the research I had done and they weren’t the very best ones. Basically, I had read that the food was monotonous and not exceedingly tasty.

Much to Schrödinger’s delight, I was both right and wrong.

You see, in the Smiling Coast rice is King and you will likely have it served with literally any and every local dish. In this sense, there is an undeniable monotony in Gambian cuisine but at the same time, it is far from not being tasty. In fact, I had remarkable experiences which I’d most definitely recommend to any and all food lovers. Yum!

So let’s talk about this one meal at a time and start with breakfast, the only meal which didn’t contain rice.

Most days we made our own breakfast out of ingredients from the nearest corner shop in an attempt to eat as simple and as local as possible. This usually meant a sachet of Nescafe bought by the unit, eggs also bought by the unit, a loaf of bread each and the local version of “Nutella” sold by the spoon load and transported in small plastic bags. Other days we made our way to the corner shop and had egg sandwiches made for us on the spot.

Fresh ingredients, minimal seasoning and good vibes!

All very simple and almost unremarkable until we realize why it is that all things are sold in as small a portion as possible. Money. Money is scarce and overspending on food is a luxury that Gambians tend to not have and one that us well off travellers need to appreciate. Even if it did cost the two of us less than 100GMD on average...

It was with this in mind that we had our breakfast of Kings while at Tanema Creek near Tanji.

As we sat outside under the morning sun having breakfast overlooking the pelicans at the Tanji bird reserve, we reflected on how fortunate we are to be living this moment. Fresh fruits, coffee and an omelette accompanied by Nutella and raspberry jam sandwiches may not seem like all that much for a hotel but with a view so perfect and after experiencing the realities of this country, we felt like true Kings!

While breakfasts tended to be relatively plain, Gambian cuisine did have a lot to offer us and the first dishes we had were grilled ladyfish and chicken benachine at Mr. Bass near Cape Point.

Grilled Ladyfish

Chicken benachine

This was during our first day and it was amazing!

The Gambia being a country by the sea and around a river, it is naturally a country with a lot of fish to offer and the grilled fish was simply fantastic. Served with plain rice, juicy and slightly crispy with just enough spice to make your tongue tingle, it simply made my day!

Equally exploring, A had chicken domada, a dish which we had read about but weren’t too sure of. It was a remarkably good choice! Delicately spicy and sweet, domada is the Gambian national dish and it is prepared with groundnut or peanut butter. Though it is often served as a vegetarian dish with fresh vegetables and rice, Gambians sometimes splurge by adding chicken or beef to it. If you try nothing else in this country, I’d definitely advise trying this dish.

We liked it so much that we, in fact, returned several times to the same restaurant and experienced the live music and dancing which was on offer in the evenings. Granted, the dancing was rather a show for the tourists having dinner and the area was filled with “bumsters” loitering for customers but the show was fun, the music was entertaining and boy could those dancers really move!

With the average dish costing around 300GMD, this was definitely a place for tourists but then again it is also one I'd definitely recommend myself.

We tried a few other places and dishes in the Bakau area as well.

On one of the evenings, we went to a place called New One for the Road and decided to go a little fancy with our dish choice. We had king prawns for starters and then tried the fish balls and the grilled butterfish.

Grilled butter fish

Gambian fish [balls] & chips

The prawns turned out to be a nice choice as they were quite well done but the main courses were the ones that caught our attention. The fish balls were a kind of fried and mashed fish paste which was actually a lot better than we expected and curiously was the only meal we had which was not served with rice but rather French fires and the butterfish was very nicely done with both dishes being in fact quite spicy! The kind of spicy that brings a tear to the corner of your eye and demands a second beer! Yes, my friends, food in the Smiling Coast is spicy and you should be prepared for it!

Sadly, this restaurant also gave us mixed feelings. It was a decently equipped restaurant just off of the entrance to the slums and I must admit that for a moment I had to stop and think about the living conditions just a couple hundred meters down the road… This was also the only place where we were attacked by mosquitoes and A was left with some pretty huge bite marks on her legs. Do remember to always use repellent! Really!!

Once more, this was a restaurant focusing on the tourists and since we decide to splurge a bit on the prawns and a couple of beers, the bill came out at around 1000GMD.

Thirsty as we are to enjoy local experiences, we also made sure to try something non-touristic and we did just that in Banjul.

After an afternoon exploring the Royal Albert Market in the capital, we decided it was time to load up with a bit of food. We wanted something which actual Gambians seek themselves and after a fairly unsuccessful amount of online search, we stumbled upon a small restaurant a short 10m walk from the market. In typical Gambian style, the menu was decent but there was only one available dish which was fish Yassa. It wasn´t our original choice but, hungry and tired, we were happy to take to give it a try.

And then it arrived in all its glory: Fried fish on plain white rice with fried onion, extra spicy!

Yummy fish head

This is also when the doubts started to appear.

You see, after having seen the sewage system of the place where the fish are sold in the market just down the road, after having seen the layers of flies, smelled the smells and looked into the lifeless eyes the fish kept with layers of salt… eating this particular fish seemed like a true gamble. I mean, who knows how fresh that could be and what kind of effect it could have on our insides…

So much so that A ultimately could not do it and simply ate the rice which in truth was quite tasty even if powerfully spicy. In her defence, she did get the fish head which isn’t the easiest thing to feast on. As for me, well I am the designated food explorer so not eating it was really not a choice. All in all, the fish was actually good even if with all the spice in the rice I could hardly taste it at all. Moreover, I am delighted to report that there were no stomach issues afterwards!

This was indeed the most local restaurant experience we had and with the fish dish itself costing 75GMD, at the end of the meal we paid about 300GMD.

On a different note, the restaurant experience is also one that requires as much patience as any other thing in this part of Africa.

At Tanji we ordered some food at a beachside restaurant and were told it may take 25m to 30m.

Grilled fish by the sea

As we were just chilling, it seemed fine so we happily agreed to wait while we had a beer. 30m minutes into the wait we noticed a guy arriving with a shopping bag and realized that the time given was not for the food to be ready but rather for the ingredients to arrive… It took an hour but with a view like this, it was hard to complain.

Tanji beach view

On a side note, despite being a Muslim country, The Gambia does have its own brewery and produces its very own beer called Julbrew.

The funniest story though was at a place called Enter, Taste and Enjoy near Bijillo.

After a chill beach day, we decided to have a snack for dinner and as this was the nearest restaurant we decided to give it a go. Possibly because it was a bit late, when we got there it was completely empty and had a strange neon-like glow inside of it. We were confused… It was supposed to be a nice restaurant, it was named like a restaurant but the decor and the colours seemed to hint at an entirely different kind of establishment and we didn’t know whether to enter or not… but enter we did.

Luckily for us, it was indeed a restaurant and with that we passed hurdle 1!

Not being very hungry, we decided to have onion soup and chicken shawarma with a couple of beers and hoped we wouldn’t take too long in the restaurant. We had forgotten the meaning of GMT time: Gambia Maybe Time!

The beer glasses arrived at our table fairly fast but the beer kept on not arriving. It was weird… why did we have glasses for 5m but no beer? I mean, we were literally the only clients there so it wasn’t like they forgot about it in the heat of rush hour serving… It felt odd until one of the waiters returned to the restaurant with 2 beers which it seemed he had just gone and bought from the shop next door. Trying to contain our laughter when the beers finally arrived it seemed like this was hurdle number 2!

As we enjoyed our beers and made sure we did not drink them too fast so as to not have to ask them to buy more from the shop, we noticed another person entering the shop with a blender in their hand. Once more, we had to make an effort to not laugh out loud. I guess the onion soup wasn’t the most popular of dishes and perhaps not the easiest to cook either. People kept flocking to the kitchen and besides however many cooks they had, we counted at least 5 other people entering the kitchen to help!

After what seemed like an intense fight with the ingredients, we did, however, get our order and thus seemed to have conquered hurdle number 3!

We were actually pleasantly surprised. The chicken shawarma was tasty and the soup was thick, tasty and lightly spicy with only a mild instant soup aftertaste. The taste of victory!

Enter, Taste and Enjoy

On our travels, we also stayed at a town called Kafuta at The Roots Guesthouse for a few days. This hostel of sorts is run by an incredibly sweet lady called Amy, or Amynatta as the locals call her, and she was the one cooking for us during our time there. Amy’s cooking was without a doubt one of the things we most fondly remember of Africa.

Every day Amy prepared vegetable-based dishes for us and we delighted at the simplicity in tastes and the freshness of the ingredients. Sometimes the simpler you serve a dish the better it tastes!

Oh yeah, and because of Amy we now love cassava!

Amy's wonderful dishes

On a final note, sometimes the best food experiences are the improvised ones.

With the right people by your side, all you need is a pack of chips and a nice beer to have a fantastic evening. Especially if you have the Gambian coast just for yourselves!

Romantic dinner